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Home , Abdullah Ibrahim, Makaya Ntshoko, The Jazz Epistles

A Tribute to the Epistles

Abdullah Ibrahim & Ekaya

Abdullah Ibrahim / Piano Cleave Guyton / Alto Saxophone, Flute, Clarinet Lance Bryant / Tenor Saxophone Marshall McDonald / Baritone Saxophone Andrae Murchison / Trombone, Trumpet Noah Jackson / Cello, Bass Will Terrill / Drums featuring Freddie Hendrix / Trumpet, Flugelhorn

Friday Evening, April 13, 2018 at 8:00 Michigan Theater Ann Arbor

84th Performance of the 139th Annual Season 24th Annual Jazz Series Traditions and Crosscurrents This evening’s performance is supported by Gary Boren and by Louise Taylor. Funded in part by the JazzNet Endowment Fund. Media partnership provided by Ann Arbor’s 107one, WDET 101.9 FM, and WEMU 89.1 FM. Abdullah Ibrahim & Ekaya appear by arrangement with Maurice Montoya Music Agency. In consideration of the artists and the audience, please refrain from the use of electronic devices during the performance. The photography, sound recording, or videotaping of this performance is prohibited. PROGRAM

A Tribute to

This evening’s concert is performed in memory of South African trumpeter Hugh , a founding member of The Jazz Epistles, who passed away in January. Tonight’s program will be announced by the artists from the stage and is performed without intermission.

3 ABOUT THE PROGRAM

South African jazz legend Abdullah Ibrahim, previously known as Dollar Brand, first heard the call of modern jazz in the late 1950s, and along with saxophonist Kippie Moeketsi, trumpeter , trombonist , bassist Johnny Gertze, and Early Mabuza and on drums, founded the pioneering Jazz Epistles — a hard-bop ensemble modeled on ’s Jazz Messengers that was the first black jazz combo to record in . On June 15–16, 2016 at the Emperors Palace in , for the first time in over 50 years, Abdullah Ibrahim and Hugh Masekela reunited for two sold-out concerts honoring the Jazz Epistles, making a profound impact on the audiences and the artists themselves. Following the success of these concerts, international tours were booked through 2017 and 2018. Sadly, on January 23, 2018 in Johannesburg, after a long battle with prostate cancer, Hugh Masekela passed away at the age of 78. Abdullah Ibrahim & Ekaya, along with special guest Freddie Hendrix in the trumpet chair, will perform tonight’s concert in tribute to the legendary Jazz Epistles and the recently departed and beloved Hugh Masekela. This evening’s repertoire will feature Abdullah Ibrahim’s classic compositions, plus new arrangements of the Jazz Epistles’ compositions from their 1959 recording, Jazz Epistle, Verse 1.

4 ARTISTS

Abdullah Ibrahim, South Africa’s After the notorious Sharpeville most distinguished pianist and a massacre of 1960, mixed-race bands world-respected master musician, and audiences were defying the was born in 1934 in and increasingly strict laws, baptized Adolph Johannes Brand. and jazz symbolized resistance, so His early musical memories were of the government closed a number of traditional African Khoi-san songs and clubs and harassed the musicians. the Christian hymns, gospel tunes, Some members of the Jazz Epistles and spirituals that he heard from his went to England with the musical grandmother, who was pianist for the and stayed in exile. These local African Methodist Episcopalian were difficult times in which to church, and his mother, who led the sustain musical development in choir. The Cape Town of his childhood South Africa. In 1962, with Nelson was a melting pot of cultural Mandela imprisoned and the ANC influences, and the young Dollar banned, Dollar Brand and Sathima Bea Brand, as he became known, was Benjamin left the country, joined later exposed to American jazz, township by the other trio members Gertze and jive, Cape Malay music, as well as Ntshoko, and took up a three-year to classical music. Out of this blend contract at the Club Africana in Zürich. of the secular and the religious, the There, in 1963, Sathima persuaded traditional and the modern, developed to listen to them play, the distinctive style, harmonies, and which led to a recording session in musical vocabulary that are inimitably Paris — Duke Ellington Presents the his own. Dollar Brand Trio — and invitations to He began piano lessons at the age perform at key European festivals, and of seven and made his professional on television and radio during the next debut at 15, playing and later two years. recording with such local groups In 1965, the now-married couple as the Tuxedo Slickers. He was in moved to New York. After appearing the forefront of playing with that year at the a Cape Town flavor and 1958 saw and Carnegie Hall, Dollar Brand was the formation of the Dollar Brand called upon in 1966 to substitute Trio. His groundbreaking septet as leader of the Ellington Orchestra the Jazz Epistles, formed in 1959 in five concerts. Then followed (with saxophonist Kippie Moeketsi, a six-month tour with the Elvin trumpeter Hugh Masekela, trombonist Jones Quartet. In 1967 he received Jonas Gwanga, bassist Johnny Gertze, a grant to and drummer Makaya Ntshoko), attend the Juilliard School of Music. recorded the first jazz album by South Being in the US also afforded him African musicians. That same year, he the opportunity to interact with many met and first performed with vocalist progressive musicians, including ; they married , , John six years later. Coltrane, Pharaoh Sanders, Cecil

5 Taylor, and . Africa. The fraught emotions of The year 1968 was a turning point. reacclimatizing there are reflected Searching for spiritual harmony in in Mantra Modes (1991), the first an increasingly fractured life, Dollar recording with South African Brand went back to Cape Town, musicians since 1976, and in Knysna where he converted to Islam, taking Blue (1993). He memorably performed the name Abdullah Ibrahim, and at Mandela’s inauguration in 1994. in 1970 he made a pilgrimage to Mr. Ibrahim has been the subject Mecca. Music and martial arts further of several documentaries, including reinforced the spiritual discipline he Chris Austin’s 1986 BBC filmA Brother found. After a couple of years based in with Perfect Timing and A Struggle Swaziland, where he founded a music for Love by Ciro Cappellari (2004). school, Mr. Ibrahim and his young He has also composed scores for family returned in 1973 to Cape Town, film, including the award-winning though he still toured internationally soundtrack for Claire Denis’s Chocolat with his own large and small groups. (1988), as well as for No Fear, No In 1974 he recorded — ‘Is Die (1990) and Idrissa Ouedraogo’s Where It’s Happening,’ which soon Tilai (1990), and he was featured became an unofficial national anthem in the 2002 production Amandla: A for black South Africans. After the Revolution in Four-Part Harmony. Soweto student uprising, in 1976, For more than a quarter-century he organized an illegal ANC benefit he has toured the world extensively, concert; before long, he and his appearing at major concert halls, family left for America, to settle once clubs, and festivals, giving sold-out again in New York. performances as a solo artist or with Determined to manage his own other renowned artists (notably, affairs in America, he founded the , , and Randy record company Ekapa in 1981 Weston). His collaborations with with Sathima. The 1980s saw him classical orchestras have resulted involved with a range of artistic in acclaimed recordings, such as projects that depended on his African Suite (1999, with members of music: Garth Fagan’s ballet Prelude the European Union Youth Orchestra) (first performed 1981), the Kalahari and the Munich Radio Philharmonic Liberation Opera (Vienna, 1982), and Orchestra symphonic version, African in 1983 a musical, Cape Town, South Symphony (2001), which also featured Africa, featuring the septet he formed the trio and the NDR Jazz Big Band. that year, Ekaya. In 1987, he played a Mr. Ibrahim celebrated his 70th memorial concert for Marcus Garvey birthday in October 2004, which was in London’s Westminster Cathedral, marked by the release of two CDs and the following year he played at by (the Munich-based the concert in Central Park, New York, label with whom he has recorded for commemorating the 70th birthday of three decades): the compilation A . Celebration, and Re:Brahim, his music In 1990 Mandela, freed from prison, remixed. His invited him to come home to South

6 discography runs to well over 100 Over the past two decades, Freddie album credits. Hendrix has become one of the When not touring, he now divides most in-demand trumpeters in jazz his time between Cape Town and and beyond. Also an accomplished New York. In addition to composing composer, arranger, and educator, the and performing, he has started a Teaneck, New Jersey native’s skill and South African production company, versatility has resulted in him working Masingita (Miracle), and established a with a wide array of performers that music academy, M7, offering courses range from the Count Basie Orchestra in seven disciplines to educate and the Christian McBride Big Band, young minds and bodies. In 2006, he to Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, and spearheaded the historic creation Alicia Keys. (backed by the South African Ministry With the release of his first of Arts and Culture) of the Cape Town recording as a leader, Jersey Cat, Mr. Jazz Orchestra, an 18-piece big band, Hendrix is serving notice that now which is set to further strengthen the is his time. He has forged his own standing of South African music on sure-footed, full-toned sound, out the global stage. of the tradition of Freddie Hubbard, A martial arts Black Belt with a Woody Shaw, Lee Morgan, and Clifford lifelong interest in Zen philosophy, Brown. A product of the esteemed he takes every opportunity to visit jazz program at William Paterson his master in private trips to Japan. In University, with a master’s in jazz 2003 he performed charity concerts studies and performance from New at temples in Kyoto and Shizuoka, the Jersey City University, Mr. Hendrix also proceeds going to the M7 academy. shares his knowledge and passion Mr. Ibrahim remains at his zenith, for the music by serving as a faculty as a musician and a tireless initiator member at the Hartt School of Music of new projects. In his own words: at the University of Hartford (CT), the “some do it because they have to do New School in New York, and Jazz it, we do it because we want to…so House Kids in Montclair, New Jersey. we do not require much sleep…so we have to do it.”

UMS ARCHIVES

Tonight marks Abdullah Ibrahim & Ekaya’s second UMS appearance, following their UMS debuts in October 2015 in the Michigan Theater. This evening’s concert marks Freddie Hendrix’s second appearance under UMS auspices, following his UMS debut in March 2009 in Hill Auditorium with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and Wynton Marsalis.

7 TONIGHT’S VICTORS FOR UMS: Gary Boren — JazzNet Endowment Fund — Louise Taylor

Supporters of this evening’s performance by Abdullah Ibrahim & Ekaya.

MAY WE ALSO RECOMMEND...

4/14 Colin Stetson: Sorrow 4/19–21 Cold Blood 4/22 Emanuel Ax

Tickets available at www.ums.org.

ON THE EDUCATION HORIZON…

4/15 UMS 101, Classical Music: Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, Apollo’s Fire (Hill Auditorium Mezzanine Lobby, 2:00 pm) Paid registration required; please visit bit.ly/UMSClasses to register.

4/19 UMS 101 Dance/Theater: Cold Blood (Power Center Green Room, 5:30 pm) Paid registration required; please visit bit.ly/UMSClasses to register.

4/19 Post-Performance Q&A: Cold Blood (Power Center, 121 Fletcher Street) Must have a ticket to that evening’s performance to attend

Educational events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.